[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 9, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1127-E1128]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONFERENCE REPORT TO ACCOMPANY H.R. 6395 WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY 
        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 9, 2020

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, yesterday I voted in support of the 
Conference Report to accompany H.R. 6395, the William M. (Mac) 
Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 
(FY) 2021. Make no mistake: I have opposed NDAA legislation in previous 
years, and I still have concerns about a number of provisions included 
in this year's legislation, but this year's conference legislation also 
contains numerous policy priorities that I strongly support.
  As with the initial House-passed NDAA, this legislation grants our 
men and women in uniform a well-deserved pay raise of 3 percent. This 
is the very least we can do for those who continue to make 
extraordinary sacrifices for our country.
  As Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I fought 
to successfully include vital provisions important to Oregon coastal 
communities. This includes the Elijah E. Cummings Coast Guard 
Authorization Act of 2020, legislation to authorize funds for, 
reinforce, and support the United States Coast Guard. I am also pleased 
that the conferees retained important provisions to reauthorize U.S. 
Maritime Administration (MARAD) programs, and for the first time 
provided MARAD with authority to provide financial assistance to the 
U.S. Maritime Transportation System in the event of a national 
emergency or disaster such as the current COVID-19 public health 
emergency.
  Given the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's jurisdiction 
over the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), I am proud that this 
legislation makes a long-overdue correction to ensure that the more 
than 45,000 FAA employees, as well as VA and other federal civilian 
employees who were inexcusably left out of last year's NDAA, receive 
twelve weeks of paid parental leave.
  I am also proud that the Conference Report includes long-overdue 
benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Specifically, the 
legislation adds Parkinsonism, bladder cancer, and hypothyroidism to 
the list of diseases associated with exposure to certain herbicide 
agents. This will ensure that tens of thousands of veterans with these 
diseases get the benefits they deserve.
  While Congress must do much more to achieve racial justice in this 
country, I strongly support conferees' retainment of language requiring 
the Department of Defense (DOD) to remove all names, symbols, displays, 
monuments, and more that honor Confederate individuals on DOD property. 
This demonstrates a strong bipartisan rebuke of President Trump's 
inexplicable threat to veto the NDAA if this long-overdue provision is 
included. I also support the bill's addition of needed diversity 
requirements for DOD military and civilian personnel, as well as 
provisions to curtail transfer of various military-grade equipment to 
law enforcement agencies. In addition, I am a strong supporter of this 
bill's requirement that federal law enforcement officers, active duty 
military, and National Guard members deployed in response to public 
protests visibly display their name and agency on their uniform. This 
requirement is especially crucial given Trump's appalling use of 
unidentifiable federal agents and unmarked vehicles to detain peaceful 
protesters in Portland, Oregon.
  I am pleased the conference legislation refuses to authorize funding 
for President Trump's dangerous and unnecessary proposals to initiate 
new nuclear weapons testing. I also support the bill's inclusion of 
funding for the Maritime Security Program (MSP) to help mitigate the 
impacts of COVID-19 on maritime carriers. Additionally, I support the 
Conference Report's provisions to strengthen the federal government's 
ability to combat money laundering and counter financing for terrorism.
  The Conference Report also takes steps to counter China's 
increasingly malign influence. This includes mandating a whole-of-
government strategy to deter China's industrial espionage and theft of 
intellectual property, as well as China's large-scale theft of personal 
information, It also establishes a plan to make the DOD less dependent 
on Chinese manufacturing, and it pushes back against China's appalling 
human rights abuses. While these are good first steps, I believe 
Congress can and should do more to combat China, including standing up 
against China's trade abuses.
  The legislation also establishes guardrails that prohibit the 
Secretary of Defense from reducing the civilian workforce unless and 
until the DOD first assesses the impact of such reductions. This will 
help protect against President Trump's ridiculous attacks--and 
potential future attacks--on civilian federal employees.
  This legislation includes hundreds-of-millions in funding for the 
construction of additional housing and barracks for training and 
enlisted personnel, as well as for oversight and improvement of the 
Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) program. The NDAA 
Conference Report also continues Congress's work to address the 
military's culture of sexual misconduct by including provisions to 
enhance the prevention of and response to incidents of sexual trauma.
  While I strongly support many provisions in this year's NDAA, I 
believe this legislation should have included additional provisions to 
rein in our bloated and wasteful defense spending, take back Congress's 
constitutional war powers authority, and more.
  I believe this legislation could have made responsible cuts to our 
defense budget without jeopardizing the safety of our troops or 
undermining our national security. For years, Congress has continued to 
increase the Pentagon's budget despite overwhelming evidence of its 
waste and abuse of taxpayer money. That's why I supported an amendment 
to responsibly reduce the Pentagon budget while retaining exceptions to 
protect service members, civilian employees, and the vital Defense 
Health Program from this reduction. Frustratingly, this amendment 
failed to pass.
  In particular, I have always opposed the DOD's Overseas Contingency 
Operations (OCO) account, a fiscally irresponsible fund that is not 
counted in the budget, recklessly adds to our mounting debt, and has no 
congressional oversight. OCO is a Pentagon slush fund that gives a 
blank check to fund endless wars that Congress hasn't authorized. I 
will continue fighting to finally eliminate this irresponsible fund.

[[Page E1128]]

  I have long supported a financial audit of the Pentagon. Unlike every 
other federal agency, the DOD has yet to pass a financial audit. For 
three years in a row, the Pentagon has spectacularly failed full 
audits, which have highlighted numerous examples of waste and abuse. It 
is ridiculous to provide the Pentagon a massive spending increase--as 
this bill does--when the Pentagon cannot even account for how it spends 
taxpayer money. That's why I offered an amendment to require and 
incentivize each DOD component to pass an audit by FY25. Unfortunately, 
my amendment did not receive a vote.
  I believe this legislation should have included more provisions to 
take back Congress's constitutional war powers authority. I am 
disappointed that conferees stripped out House-passed provisions that 
would have prohibited use of DOD funds to provide support to Saudi-led 
airstrikes in Yemen and prohibit unauthorized participation of the U.S. 
military in hostilities in Yemen. I also believe this legislation 
should have prevented the President from using unauthorized force in 
Iran, repealed the long-outdated 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the 
use of military force (AUMFs), and prohibited funding for the 
deployment of dangerous low-yield nuclear weapons.
  I am also disappointed that other provisions which I support were not 
included in the Conference Report. This includes provisions to amend 
the Insurrection Act to provide Congress more transparency when a 
President deploys active duty military within the United States during 
civil unrest, utilize full Defense Production Act authorities to 
finally meet our country's COVID-19 medical supply needs, block the 
Trump administration's cruel ban on transgender individuals serving in 
the military, finally close down the unnecessary and unconstitutional 
Guantanamo Bay prison facility, provide immediate student loan relief 
to the over 200,000 servicemembers who have privately held debt, and 
include my amendment to abolish the military draft. While the 
Conference Report does take steps to help address PFAS and PFOA 
contamination on military installations, I believe this legislation 
should have done much more to address the public health threat that 
this contamination poses to our military members and Americans living 
near installations.
  The bottom line is that fiscal responsibility and accountability at 
the DOD would allow for taxpayer funds to be better spent supporting 
the needs of our troops, meeting our obligations to veterans, and 
ensuring our legitimate defense needs are prioritized while also 
bolstering long-underfunded domestic priorities.

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